Moral breakdown ?

We have posted on this blog and others our view that, long before the UK riots, there has been a perceptible significant sense that more and more of the public think it’s acceptable to break laws. There seems to be an attitude of “if everyone else is doing it, why shouldn’t I”. This was very much the attitude of the looting in the riots, and reflects other areas such as :-

• Lying on job applications
• Inflating income on Self certificate mortgages
• Inflating insurance claims
• Bogus personal injury claims

Yet more evidence of this worrying moral decline, which seems to be directly related to rampant consumerism and an attitude that we need to get what we want at all costs (if we keep going this way, where does it end ?) comes from some data regarding speeding and other driving offences.

Research from LV car insurers found that :-

• 6% of drivers are willing to accept penalty points for driving offences where they were not responsible.
• 66% of these would falsely accept penalty points to help a friend avoid disqualification.
• 6% of those that admitted accepting penalty points for others were paid to do it.
• 4% answered that they do not believe they are breaking the law by accepting penalty points for another person

Putting the above into context, since 2001 this equates to some 300,000 drivers lying.

What do you think about these issues ?